Lineup

The Schmidt update is just about everywhere you look online, so no real need to add much here. If there’s a silver lining to be found, it’s that the surgeon felt very good about that fact that he was able to repair everything that he saw and is confident that Schmidt can return to the power pitcher he was before the injuries. We certainly wish him well in his recovery.

Clayton Kershaw will be playing in the Futures Game, it was announced today. That takes place the Sunday before the All-Star Game up in SF. Stan Conte was also named to the NL training staff and there’s still work to be done in voting our players into the starting lineup. If you look at it realistically, we could potentially have five All-Stars: Martin, Penny, Lowe, Saito and Kent. Of course, it never actually works that way, but Lowe has pitched well enough to go there but his record hasn’t reflected that. Saito has been nearly unhittable all season long and Jeff might trail Utley in most offensive categories, but it’s not out of the question that he could return to San Fran as a backup at second base.

Oh, and I’ve been named to the NL PR staff for the All-Star Game. OK, so maybe I wasn’t so much named as volunteered, but I’ll be up north for the Midsummer Classic, too.

Here’s the lineup for tonight. Hopefully I can find some time to post more later tonight.

I would consider Bill’s first start successful if he’s able to go four full innings with no more than two runs allowed.
Then Hendrickson could contribute mightily with two innings and no more that one run allowed. I’d let the real bullpen take over from there. So, if we can score four in the game, we should be O.K.

Ok, here’s why Kemp is not DHing. DHing is an extremely difficult thing to do. You have to sit on your behind for three hours. You get up 4 times a game. It’s like pitch hitting 4 seperate times. So, putting a rookie in a DH position where he would have to pitch hit 4 times is not smart because he’s not a pitch hitter. Anderson and Saenz are pitch hitting specialists so it makes sense to DH them this series. And….they will DH position players this weekend against the D-Rays (for sure Martin). And with a day game Sunday that would be where you’ll see Gonzo, Nomar or Kent DHing.

DHing is not that hard to do. Playing defense doesn’t affect the way you hit, I did it from time to time in college and had some of my best offensive games as a DH. Besides most DH’s take soft toss, ride exercise bikes etc.(ie. Edgar Martinez) between ABs anyway so that surely can’t be the reason.

I guess there’s no room for Loney or Kemp to play. After all it’s very important to have Anderson DH. Speaking of DH, the Dodgers will use Anderson while the Jays use Frank Thomas,how the heck is that fair? I think it’s time for Nomar and Pierre to rest.

The thing that scares me about the whole situation is that Grady doesn’t seem to consider Kemp a viable option on our team. I wonder if they are trying to keep his #s inflated to boost his trade value.

you’re probably not as interested as i am (being that i’m a girl, and have an actual crush on him, haha).. but it’s a good interview nonetheless.. showing you how great a person russ is, EVEN THOUGH WE ALL KNOW THAT ALREADY :O)

can we finally put the joeyp thing to rest with the following. All Depo lovers are in love with obp over almost any other stat. well lets compare his lineup that he put out there yesterday with today’s dodgers lineup

pos. joeyp dodgers

player player

1B Out of .324

country

2B .343(AAA) .348

SS .277(AAA) .342

3B suspended .338

LF .347 .378

CF .373(cut) .310

RF .345 .323

DH .337 .343

C .241 .358

so joep wins at CF and RF but his centerfielder has been released. To top it off his lineup has 24 homeruns with 12 of those coming at AAA while the Dodgers lineup has 43 homeruns.

Therefore can we just put joeyp out of his misery and ignore him from here on out.

I was OK seeing Anderson DH one game. But again??? I hate complaining about the line-ups–there is a debate and a reason to start Nomar or Loney, Kemp or Pierre, etc. But this should be beyond debate. Nomar, Kent, or Gonzo should be DHing in these illegal league games, with their future replacements getting playing time in the field. (Martin should DH sometime, but not on Billingsley’s first start.) Actually, wouldn’t this be a fun game to start Loney, Abreu, and Kemp, and have one of the veterans DH and give the other two a day off, and basically see the future?

BTW–does anyone have even a scinitilla of doubt about Billingsley shutting them down tonight? I don’t–I think he’ll never see the bullpen again, and we’re about to witness the emergence of an ace. It’s like June 29, 1984–Orel Hershiser entered the starting rotation, and didn’t leave it again, and only pitched out of the bullpen in crazy extra inning emergencies, or Game 5 of the NLCS (which was also a crazy emergency too).

Finally, who came up with this idea that they are playing a guy to showcase him for a trade. It really makes no sense. The last post I saw this about was Ethier–well, if Ethier has all the offense that someone would want in a trade, then we need that offense and won’t trade him. Better to keep a young guy a mystery–it’s like Abe Lincoln said, “better to be silent and be thought of as a fool, then to speak and remove all doubt.”

“BTW–does anyone have even a scinitilla of doubt about Billingsley shutting them down tonight? I don’t–I think he’ll never see the bullpen again, and we’re about to witness the emergence of an ace. It’s like June 29, 1984–Orel Hershiser entered the starting rotation, and didn’t leave it again, and only pitched out of the bullpen in crazy extra inning emergencies, or Game 5 of the NLCS (which was also a crazy emergency too).”

1) Yesterday was painful to watch. I’ll admit I stopped watching after Kuo was pulled. Thankfully they only have one Halladay.

2) I know he’s not a Dodger anymore, but still, Milton Bradley’s DFA today shocked me. I can see quite a few clubs that could benefit from picking him up. Maybe he could help Kent pick things up . . .

3) Nice to see Ethier hit like he did last night. He’s not where he was last year, and it would be great if that would get him going.

4) Is there something wrong with Kuo’s velocity? Gameday is reporting high 80s, as opposed to the 97mph heater I saw on TV at the end of last year.

5) Billingsley will go as long as he can on a limited pitch count, and then Mark Hendrickson will pick up for him. Ideally, the Dodgers will get to Marcum early, because in a battle of bullpens, I think we win.

Between the hopelessness of the lineup and the seeming certainty of seeing Hendrickson pitch today, I have a hard time summoning any excitement about the game!

At least the Padres lost.

And the Rockies swept the Yankees. If we’re not careful, we will be in fourth place before the month is over. Not that the Yankees is that good. But the Rockies seems to be on the up and up, while we’re more of a gently sliding kind of club right now.

If we lose these two series against AL, I’m at least hoping that Grady will be convinced to start using the youngsters. How long are we going to wait for the 3 and 4 batters to heat up for the season. They’re just barely luke warm, but I suppose they’re just pacing themselves for the stretch run – like for fourth place in the division.

I’m going to make the radical suggestion that as long as we play him, we let Pierre bat leadoff. Until Furcal gets his stroke back (or heals his ankle, which is probably the problem) he now needs to bat way down in the order.

I know it was a cheapo hit but seriously we need Kemp to get more playing time.

max you and I don’t always agree on things but I loved that link you posted earlier, Jon Weisman is dead-on with his assessment. Kemp brings that extra fear factor that our line-up is lacking. Guys like Sosa have made a living being dead-red fastball hitters, give the kid some extended playing time and let him take his lumps and get better.

haha thanks for the tip and as much as i like my sorority girl baking side, 91% of my crush on martin is because of his talent, 9% looks…except when he doesn’t shave…then it’s 90% talent and 10% looks…haha

If Wolf were to get hurt? Blame it on bad conditioning. Blame it on bad luck. But Grady’s certainly not the first manager to have a pitcher pinch-run… and he certainly won’t ever be the last. Wolf’s in great condition and he’s a great athlete… I’m sure he can run just fine.

well this is what i don’t get about Pinch Running with wolf…first off he pinch ran for the DH so now, unless they DH Wolf, we have too us two players off the bench instead of one. Also, do you really want to risk a pitching on the base paths? If Wolf would have gotten hurt we would have had another whole to fill in the rotation with probably Bombko or Hendickson and i KNOW no one wants that.

then why not Pinch run loney? he was running in the outfield today and looked great according to Tony Jackson. As much as i love Loney an injury to him wouldn’t hurt the team as much as an injury to Wolf or any other pitcher.

again, an injury to loney wouldn’t hurt the team as much as an injury to wolf. I know i’d rather have Wolf on the mound then Bombko or Hendrickson. but he didn’t get hurt so it doesn’t matter still it was a noodle scratcher.

I like the new mlb online shop. One thing, though. White shirts placed on white backgrounds 😦 Doesn’t matter much for guys stuff I guess but I’m tryin’ to talk my woman into something with a dodgers logo. So if you know who to email to fix those items that you can’t see in the store that would make my birthday shopping for wife much easier.

I completely understand it’s the character you’ve given yourself. I’m pretty sure you were cheering along like the rest of us. Here is a not so big secret: we kind of know you’re a HUGE fan, considering you’re here every day. Just let me know what your dress size is and I’ll have one ready for you in October lol.

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